2 barcelona poems

3 People I Have Spoken to in Barcelona

The first evening, I spoke to the un-
Speakably beautiful waitress, just
Briefly, because she was too beautiful
And I didn’t want it to seem like I
Was chatting her up, even though she smiled
At me and spoke English better than
Spanish, a result, perhaps, of her
Being Polish. She said she was coming
To London soon and I wanted to say,
Well if you come you should look me up,
But I didn’t, because she was un-
Speakably beautiful, and I am
Human and then I would have been
Chatting her up. On the second day
I spoke to the cleaner of the flat
I’m staying in. I couldn’t place her
Accent and asked where she was from and
She told me Paysandu, in Uruguay,
Where once we drove across the border
So slowly it seemed we’d never get there.
(Or was that Salto?) The woman said
She had no desire to go back. She’s
Lived here with her eighteen year old son
And sister since splitting up with her dull
Machista husband eight years ago.
Since coming to Europe she’s learnt,
She said, that you have to enjoy life.
She gave me a cigarette and we
Sat and smoked and drank water out of
Wine glasses, muy fino, she joked. Although
She said she didn’t miss Uruguay, the
More she talked the more she softened in her
Attitude towards the mother country,
And by the time our cigarettes were
Smoked and the water drunk I felt as though
We’d known each other half our adult lives.
Though we hadn’t. We’d only just met. The
Third person I spoke to was a doorman
At a bar called Marmelada, who came
From Brasilia where I’ve never been and
I can’t remember much about that
Conversation, though I remember
Enjoying it, despite being,
At the time, extremely drunk.

27.07.08

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In Club Divine

The thing that was scary about
The transvestite diva was not
The powder blue outfit or the
Hyper-tensile hair. It was not the
Way she lurked in the corridor
Outside the loos whilst preparing
To perform her next number. It
Wasn’t the way she tried to tweak
My nipple as I walked past, and
Then, seeing I was unfazed, clapped
Her hands, violently, an inch
From my nose. The thing that was scary
About the Catalan transvestite
Diva was the fact that, beneath the
Powder blue outfit, beneath the nail
Varnish and the eyeliner, she remained
Irretrievably, resolutely and
Forever, masculine to the bone.


28.07.08


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